Rhombus

In plane Euclidean geometry, a rhombus (plural rhombi or

rhombuses) is a quadrilateral whose four sides all have the same
Rhombus
length. Another name is equilateral quadrilateral, since
equilateral means that all of its sides are equal in length. The
rhombus is often called a diamond, after the diamonds suit in
playing cards which resembles the projection of an octahedral
diamond, or a lozenge, though the former sometimes refers
specifically to a rhombus with a 60° angle (which some authors
call a calisson after the French sweet[1] – also see Polyiamond), Two rhombi
and the latter sometimes refers specifically to a rhombus with a 45° Type quadrilateral,
angle.
trapeziod,
Every rhombus is simple (non-self-intersecting), and is a special parallelogram, kite
case of a parallelogram and a kite. A rhombus with right angles is a Edges 4
square.[2][3] and
vertices
Schläfli {}+{}
Contents symbol {2α}

Etymology Coxeter
diagram
Characterizations
Symmetry Dihedral (D2), [2],
Basic properties
group (*22), order 4
Diagonals
Area (half the
Inradius
product of the
Area
diagonals)
Dual properties
Dual rectangle
Cartesian equation polygon
Other properties Properties convex, isotoxal
As the faces of a polyhedron
See also
References
External links

Etymology
The word "rhombus" comes from Ancient Greek: ῥόμβος, romanized: rhombos, meaning something that
spins,[4] which derives from the verb ῥέμβω, romanized: rhémbō, meaning "to turn round and round."[5]
The word was used both by Euclid and Archimedes, who used the term "solid rhombus" for a bicone, two
right circular cones sharing a common base.[6]
The surface we refer to as rhombus today is a cross
section of the bicone on a plane through the apexes of the
two cones.

Characterizations
A simple (non-self-intersecting) quadrilateral is a
rhombus if and only if it is any one of the following:[7][8]

a parallelogram in which a diagonal bisects an

interior angle
a parallelogram in which at least two
consecutive sides are equal in length
a parallelogram in which the diagonals are
perpendicular (an orthodiagonal parallelogram)
a quadrilateral with four sides of equal length
(by definition)
The rhombus has a square as a special case,
a quadrilateral in which the diagonals are and is a special case of a kite and
perpendicular and bisect each other parallelogram.
a quadrilateral in which each diagonal bisects
two opposite interior angles
a quadrilateral ABCD possessing a point P in its plane such that the four triangles ABP,
BCP, CDP, and DAP are all congruent[9]
a quadrilateral ABCD in which the incircles in triangles ABC, BCD, CDA and DAB have a
common point[10]

Basic properties
Every rhombus has two diagonals connecting pairs of opposite vertices, and two pairs of parallel sides.
Using congruent triangles, one can prove that the rhombus is symmetric across each of these diagonals. It
follows that any rhombus has the following properties:

Opposite angles of a rhombus have equal measure.

The two diagonals of a rhombus are perpendicular; that is, a rhombus is an orthodiagonal
quadrilateral.
Its diagonals bisect opposite angles.

The first property implies that every rhombus is a parallelogram. A rhombus therefore has all of the
properties of a parallelogram: for example, opposite sides are parallel; adjacent angles are supplementary;
the two diagonals bisect one another; any line through the midpoint bisects the area; and the sum of the
squares of the sides equals the sum of the squares of the diagonals (the parallelogram law). Thus denoting
the common side as a and the diagonals as p and q, in every rhombus

Not every parallelogram is a rhombus, though any parallelogram with perpendicular diagonals (the second
property) is a rhombus. In general, any quadrilateral with perpendicular diagonals, one of which is a line of
symmetry, is a kite. Every rhombus is a kite, and any quadrilateral that is both a kite and parallelogram is a
rhombus.
A rhombus is a tangential quadrilateral.[11] That is, it has an inscribed circle that is tangent to all four sides.

Diagonals
The length of the diagonals p = AC and q = BD can be
expressed in terms of the rhombus side a and one vertex
angle α as

and
A rhombus. Each angle marked with a black
dot is a right angle. The height h is the
perpendicular distance between any two non-
These formulas are a direct consequence of the law of adjacent sides, which equals the diameter of
cosines. the circle inscribed. The diagonals of lengths p
and q are the red dotted line segments.

Inradius
The inradius (the radius of a circle inscribed in the rhombus), denoted by r, can be expressed in terms of the
diagonals p and q as[11]

or in terms of the side length a and any vertex angle α or β as

Area
As for all parallelograms, the area K of a rhombus is the product of its base and its height (h). The base is
simply any side length a:

The area can also be expressed as the base squared times the sine of any angle:

or in terms of the height and a vertex angle:

or as half the product of the diagonals p, q:

or as the semiperimeter times the radius of the circle inscribed in the rhombus (inradius):
Another way, in common with parallelograms, is to consider two adjacent sides as vectors, forming a
bivector, so the area is the magnitude of the bivector (the magnitude of the vector product of the two
vectors), which is the determinant of the two vectors' Cartesian coordinates: K = x1 y2 – x2 y1 .[12]

Dual properties
The dual polygon of a rhombus is a rectangle:[13]

A rhombus has all sides equal, while a rectangle has all angles equal.
A rhombus has opposite angles equal, while a rectangle has opposite sides equal.
A rhombus has an inscribed circle, while a rectangle has a circumcircle.
A rhombus has an axis of symmetry through each pair of opposite vertex angles, while a
rectangle has an axis of symmetry through each pair of opposite sides.
The diagonals of a rhombus intersect at equal angles, while the diagonals of a rectangle are
equal in length.
The figure formed by joining the midpoints of the sides of a rhombus is a rectangle, and vice
versa.

Cartesian equation
The sides of a rhombus centered at the origin, with diagonals each falling on an axis, consist of all points (x,
y) satisfying

The vertices are at and This is a special case of the superellipse, with exponent 1.

Other properties
One of the five 2D lattice types is the rhombic lattice, also called centered rectangular lattice.
Identical rhombi can tile the 2D plane in three different ways, including, for the 60° rhombus,
the rhombille tiling.

As 30-60 degree
As topological square tilings
rhombille tiling
 Three-dimensional analogues of a rhombus include the bipyramid and the bicone.
Several polyhedra have rhombic faces, such as the rhombic dodecahedron and the trapezo-
rhombic dodecahedron.

Some polyhedra with all rhombic faces

Isohedral polyhedra Not isohedral polyhedra
Three types of
Identical rhombi Identical golden rhombi Two types of rhombi
rhombi

Rhombic Rhombic Rhombic Rhombic

Rhombohedron
dodecahedron triacontahedron icosahedron enneacontahedron

As the faces of a polyhedron

A rhombohedron (also called a rhombic hexahedron) is a three-dimensional figure like a cuboid (also called
a rectangular parallelepiped), except that its 3 pairs of parallel faces are up to 3 types of rhombi instead of
rectangles.

The rhombic dodecahedron is a convex polyhedron with 12 congruent rhombi as its faces.

The rhombic triacontahedron is a convex polyhedron with 30 golden rhombi (rhombi whose diagonals are
in the golden ratio) as its faces.

The great rhombic triacontahedron is a nonconvex isohedral, isotoxal polyhedron with 30 intersecting
rhombic faces.

The rhombic hexecontahedron is a stellation of the rhombic triacontahedron. It is nonconvex with 60

golden rhombic faces with icosahedral symmetry.

The rhombic enneacontahedron is a polyhedron composed of 90 rhombic faces, with three, five, or six
rhombi meeting at each vertex. It has 60 broad rhombi and 30 slim ones.

The trapezo-rhombic dodecahedron is a convex polyhedron with 6 rhombic and 6 trapezoidal faces.

The rhombic icosahedron is a polyhedron composed of 20 rhombic faces, of which three, four, or five meet
at each vertex. It has 10 faces on the polar axis with 10 faces following the equator.

See also
Merkel-Raute
Rhombus of Michaelis, in human anatomy
Rhomboid, either a parallelepiped or a parallelogram that is neither a rhombus nor a
rectangle
Rhombic antenna
Rhombic Chess
 Flag of the Department of North Santander of Colombia, containing four stars in the shape of
a rhombus
Superellipse (includes a rhombus with rounded corners)

References
1. Alsina, Claudi; Nelsen, Roger B. (31 December 2015). A Mathematical Space Odyssey:
Solid Geometry in the 21st Century (https://books.google.com/books?id=2F_0DwAAQBAJ&
pg=PA28). ISBN 9781614442165.
2. Note: Euclid's original definition and some English dictionaries' definition of rhombus
excludes squares, but modern mathematicians prefer the inclusive definition.
3. Weisstein, Eric W. "Square" (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Square.html). MathWorld.
inclusive usage
4. ῥόμβος (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.005
7%3Aentry%3Dr%28o%2Fmbos) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20131108114843/ht
tp://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%
3Dr%28o%2Fmbos) 2013-11-08 at the Wayback Machine, Henry George Liddell, Robert
Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
5. ρέμβω (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.005
7%3Aentry%3Dr%28e%2Fmbw) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20131108114840/htt
p://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3
Dr%28e%2Fmbw) 2013-11-08 at the Wayback Machine, Henry George Liddell, Robert
Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
6. "The Origin of Rhombus" (https://web.archive.org/web/20150402143657/http://www.pballew.
net/rhomb). Archived from the original (http://www.pballew.net/rhomb) on 2015-04-02.
Retrieved 2005-01-25.
7. Zalman Usiskin and Jennifer Griffin, "The Classification of Quadrilaterals. A Study of
Definition (https://books.google.com/books?id=ff0nDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=one
page&q=rhombus&f=false) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20200226195300/https://b
ooks.google.com/books?id=ff0nDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=rhombus&
f=false) 2020-02-26 at the Wayback Machine", Information Age Publishing, 2008, pp. 55-56.
8. Owen Byer, Felix Lazebnik and Deirdre Smeltzer, Methods for Euclidean Geometry (https://b
ooks.google.com/books?id=W4acIu4qZvoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=rhombus&f
=false) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20190901191543/https://books.google.com/bo
oks?id=W4acIu4qZvoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=rhombus&f=false) 2019-09-01
at the Wayback Machine, Mathematical Association of America, 2010, p. 53.
9. Paris Pamfilos (2016), "A Characterization of the Rhombus", Forum Geometricorum 16, pp.
331–336, [1] (http://forumgeom.fau.edu/FG2016volume16/FG201640.pdf) Archived (https://w
eb.archive.org/web/20161023135753/http://forumgeom.fau.edu/FG2016volume16/FG20164
0.pdf) 2016-10-23 at the Wayback Machine
10. "IMOmath, "26-th Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad 2004" " (https://imomath.com/othercomp/
Bra/BraMO04.pdf) (PDF). Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20161018164829/http://imo
math.com/othercomp/Bra/BraMO04.pdf) (PDF) from the original on 2016-10-18. Retrieved
2020-01-06.
11. Weisstein, Eric W. "Rhombus" (https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Rhombus.html). MathWorld.
12. WildLinAlg episode 4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XghF70fqkY) Archived (https://w
eb.archive.org/web/20170205162901/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XghF70fqkY)
2017-02-05 at the Wayback Machine, Norman J Wildberger, Univ. of New South Wales,
2010, lecture via youtube
13. de Villiers, Michael, "Equiangular cyclic and equilateral circumscribed polygons",
Mathematical Gazette 95, March 2011, 102-107.
External links
Parallelogram and Rhombus - Animated course (Construction, Circumference, Area) (http://
www.elsy.at/kurse/index.php?kurs=Parallelogram+and+Rhombus&status=public)
Rhombus definition, Math Open Reference (http://www.mathopenref.com/rhombus.html) with
interactive applet.
Rhombus area, Math Open Reference (http://www.mathopenref.com/rhombusarea.html) -
shows three different ways to compute the area of a rhombus, with interactive applet

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